


a dream of an ambiguous illusion

by tokiwas



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Inception AU, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 10:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19227589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokiwas/pseuds/tokiwas
Summary: inception au. banri, an architecture student, is drawn to boundless creation within the world of dreams, but soon develops an interest in his employer, who spends most of his time asleep.





	a dream of an ambiguous illusion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greenfelix (literallyepsilon)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literallyepsilon/gifts).



> written for the a3! rarepair exchange hosted by lia. thank you very much for hosting the event!  
> this was written as a gift for kai  
> can be seen as pre-slash or gen, whichever you prefer.  
> **  
> no knowledge of inception is required to read this fic. more explanations about this au can be found in the end notes  
> **  
> title taken from "paradigm box" by phatmans after school

A maze in the shape of a circle.

A maze with no way out.

In the middle of a park, Banri sketches casually, randomly creating mazes. Now that it’s the summer holiday, he doesn’t have to be bogged down by specific measurements and plaster models. Instead, he can draw whatever he wants to his heart’s content.

Architecture is fun. Banri remembers the days that flowed on, the ones where he was good at everything without even trying. They blurred into each other and he had moved forward without purpose. But when a friend from an Arts university asked him to pay a visit during open day, Banri was captivated by the structures in the architecture section and immediately decided to take the course after graduating from high school.

Sometimes it’s annoying to have to adhere to certain limits, like general physics and set measurements, but all in all, it’s interesting. It’s challenging, and that’s all Banri needs – a challenge.

Now he just has to apply for an internship somewhere to put everything he studied into practice, and he can finally be satisfied with himself. Banri stands up, crumpling up his sketches, and places it in his pocket as he heads out of the park, passing a man sleeping on the grass.

**

He only makes it across the street when a hand clasps his shoulder. Banri’s instincts kick in, and he whirls around with his hands curled in fists, ready for a fight. Instead he’s met with a sleepy looking man with a piece of paper in his hands.

“Is this your drawing?”

It’s the man from before, the one who was sleeping in the park. He holds up the crumpled drawing of the mazes that Banri had sketched for fun earlier. It must have fallen out of his pocket.

“Yeah.” Banri shrugs. “What about it?”

“Are you an architect?” the man goes on, ignoring Banri’s question. It ticks him off, but he decides to answer, anyway.

“I’m an architecture student. Like I said, what about it?”

The man stares at the drawing for a while, and shoves three marshmallows into his mouth. Banri wonders how many he consumes in a day.

“I have a job requiring an architect,” the stranger finally says. “Do you want in?”

Banri spits out a laugh.

“Oh come on,” he sneers. “That sounds incredibly shady. You didn’t even give me a business card or anything – you think I’m gonna say yes?”

The stranger stares at him. He has one eye covered, Banri realises – his right eye is covered completely from view. Perhaps this man is blind in one eye, or has a cartoon villain scar, or something. Banri fights the urge to brush away his fringe.

“If you join me, you’ll be able to build without being tied down by the laws of physics,” the man says.

This gets Banri’s attention.

**

Joining an unknown job on a whim sounds horrifically dangerous, but Banri doesn’t care. The offer sounds too intriguing. To be able to build freely, without being bound by limits – it’s always been his dream.

His new employer takes him to what looks like a deserted warehouse, consuming a bag of marshmallows on the way there. Banri steels himself for a potential fight with some shady gang members, but instead, he finds himself looking at a single person inside the warehouse, setting up some strange equipment. He gives the two of them a rather blank expression as they enter.

“Welcome back, Mikage. Who’s this guy? He looks underage.”

“Our new Architect. You told me to get one, so I did.” Banri’s employer – Mikage – goes to sit on a chair, opening a new bag of marshmallows and starting to eat.

“Let me guess, you found the first person in the park who had some form of architecture book or magazine with them,” the other man groans. Mikage doesn’t respond; instead he closes his eyes and starts to snore. Banri is almost impressed by how easily he fell asleep. His friend doesn’t seem too amused, though.

“Sorry for the trouble,” he says, going over to Banri and offering a hand. “I’m Takato Tasuku. The guy who’s recruited you, his name is Mikage Hisoka.”

“Settsu Banri,” Banri responds, shaking his hand. “I jumped in because I heard I could build without regarding physics. Are you guys some shady startup company or something?”

Tasuku laughs.

“Not quite,” he says. “We’re actually – in the business of dreams.”

From his chair, Mikage Hisoka continues to snore.

**

Dreamshare. It sounds like something out of a movie. It began as a government experiment which was scrapped, and now it’s used by thieves hired by incredibly wealthy people to steal information from their competitors. An entire illegal job market, moving through the corporate world unnoticed. Banri is thrilled by the information.

“What we do is dive into the subconscious of our target – our Mark,” Tasuku explains, while Hisoka shovels marshmallows in his mouth. “We extract the information, and then our client uses it without his rival knowing how he got the information. It’s pretty much the perfect crime.”

“Sounds neat,” Banri says. “Where do I come in?”

“You basically design the layout of the dream. If we don’t have a layout, the dream may as well just be complete chaos. So we need a set layout which allows us to pinpoint the location of the information, which in turn makes it easier to extract the information.”

Designing a dream. Banri’s heart pounds in excitement. He feels alive, just like the first time he got into architecture. All those boring days had melted away into new challenges. Now, the challenges and the stakes are even higher than ever. Banri can’t wait to begin.

“The good thing is that this job is pretty small, so it’s just the three of us,” Tasuku tells him. “When the job is complicated, you need a Forger – someone who fakes a specific appearance in the dream. And when the dreams need to last for a long time, you need a Chemist – someone who administers pretty powerful narcotics so that everyone can stay under long enough to get the information.

“I’m glad we don’t need Alice for this job,” Hisoka says, munching on a marshmallow. Tasuku doesn’t comment on that, but from the look on his face, Banri can tell that he agrees.

“We usually have more people,” he goes on. “But they’re on another job right now. I’m glad you’re willing to take on the job.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Banri grins. “I’m definitely up for the job. Do we just like, pop into the middle of a dream or something?”

“Well, sure,” Tasuku replies. “I mean, whenever we dream, we jump smack dab into the middle of one, don’t we? We never know how it begins, we just find ourselves in the beginning of one. And it feels pretty damn real, until we wake up and its not. Do you wanna try building now?”

Banri nods, the smile on his face widening. Tasuku heads over to the equipment he was setting up earlier, which looks like a briefcase. He pulls out two wires with IVs attached, and connects them to both Banri and Hisoka, who’s already asleep.

“I’ll set the timer for about five minutes,” Tasuku says. “Time goes much slower in dreams, so don’t worry and just take as much time as you need to build. Mikage will help you along the way.”

He presses the button in the middle of the briefcase, and as Banri falls asleep, his mind immediately starts whirring, thinking of what to build.

**

The first thing he sees is a singular road, and then, it parts into separate streets. When he looks up, buildings appear on all sides, just how his mind had imagined them. The streets are filled with people, much to his surprise. Banri had expected them to be empty.

“Good job,” Hisoka says, from behind him. “You build fast.”

“Thanks,” Banri replies easily. “Can _you_ build?”

“I’m not good at it,” Hisoka yawns. “I can’t be bothered to pay attention to details. Who cares what fabric a carpet in someone’s apartment is made of?”

Banri understands his way of thinking a little. He’s never been one to pay close attention to specifics. The only reason why he does it now is because of how much it’s drilled into his head during lectures.

As they continue to walk, Banri fills the dream out with more buildings, with more specifics. A café. A flowershop. So on, so forth. More and more people enter the picture, passing them by.

“Who are these people?” he asks.

“Just projections,” Hisoka replies. “We’re in my subconscious, so they’re just my memories of random people in the dream. They’re not real people.”

Soon enough, the whole city is filled up. Most of the buildings have older designs, reminiscent of European cities. Banri moves through his self-built dream with excitement. He managed to build a whole city in such a short amount of time. How much more could he come up with?

How much could he alter in this dream?

As the thought comes into his head, slowly, half of the city rises into the sky, alike a 3D model folding over. The buildings don’t topple, and people walk on the roads despite being completely upside down. Banri grins at his work. He just created a structure which defied gravity.

“Wow,” Hisoka murmurs. They head towards where the city is folded, and they walk up.

Banri becomes more ambitious as he continues to build. The buildings start to change shape, become more modern. Some hang suspended in the air, some have structures that are almost impossible to maintain in reality. But it’s a dream, and so they exist.

“This is fucking cool,” he hisses, in delight.

“You’ll have to be careful,” Hisoka says. “The more stuff you alter, my subconscious will realise you’re in my dream, and the projections will sniff you out like antibodies attacking a virus.”

“No worries, no worries,” Banri replies breezily, as a bridge rises up from the ground. They climb up the bridge and continue to walk. “Everything’s so avant garde nowadays, it might as well be some futuristic exhibition or something.”

Hisoka doesn’t reply. He’s quiet for a while, looking around the area.

“I know this bridge,” he murmurs. “This is a real bridge, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Banri answers. “I walked along it when I was in Paris. It’s pretty cool, right?”

“Don’t build from memories,” Hisoka says automatically, as if he’s reciting an instruction given by someone else. “If you do that, it’s easier for the projections to know there’s an invasion.”

“Yeah, but, it’s easier to just build from what I know, right? And then play around with it later.”

As Banri keeps walking forward, someone bumps into him. And another, and another.

“Hey, your projections are acting all weird,” he calls out. There’s no answer, and it’s only then he realises he’s surrounded by a swarm of projections, all reaching out to grab him. He tries to back away, but there are people behind him too – he’s completely trapped. Immediately, he tries to attack his way out of the crowd, but there are too many of them, and soon enough, he finally understands what Hisoka meant by antibodies seeking out a virus.

He’s grabbed on all sides, and while Hisoka shoves through the crowd, trying to reach him, Banri notices a single person – a young man with short, light hair and a soft face, moving away from the crowd instead of trying to grab Banri just like every other one of Hisoka’s projections. Hisoka seems to notice this person too – he stares, for a split second, before he shakes his head and leaps straight at Banri, sending them hurtling over the bridge.

Banri jerks awake before they hit the water.

**

“What the fuck was that?!” Banri spits out, as he tries to catch his breath. Hisoka ignores him, and goes straight for the table where he spins what looks like a miniature top, waiting for it to stop spinning and grabbing it once it falls over.

“Let me guess,” Tasuku says. “Did you get mobbed by a bunch of projections?”

Banri, still panting heavily, gives him a nod.

“Every mind is like that. If it were your own subconscious, Mikage would experience the same thing. You just need to make sure you move through the dream without the subconscious knowing you’re an invader.”

Banri glowers at Hisoka, who simply drops into a chair and grabs a bag of marshmallows, but he can’t disprove Tasuku’s logic. The anger is fading, now that he knows it wasn’t a personal attack. Instead it’s being replaced by the same curiosity as before.

“At least one of them didn’t try to kill me,” he mutters under his breath.

“Oh, so you’ve met August,” Tasuku says, conversationally.

Banri blinks twice.

“August?”

“Yeah. He’s – Mikage’s projection. He appears loads of times whenever we’re on jobs. Sometimes he talks, most of the time he’s just kind of there. He’s doesn’t act like other projections – he’s a bit like a ghost, I guess. We call them Shades.”

So your subconscious can even produce ghosts in dreams. The human mind is a fascinating place, Banri thinks.

“It’s not all bad,” Tasuku continues. “Some shades can be pretty scary. Some try to make you stay in the dream, some even try to kill you. Mikage’s shade is pretty harmless, if you ask me.”

Banri raises an eyebrow at how nonchalant Tasuku seems about the whole ordeal. He sounds as if he’s seen plenty of things.

Tasuku offers Banri some water, to help him calm down. Hisoka eats marshmallows as usual. An awkward silence hangs in the air – their new recruit’s first venture into dream architecture had gone completely awry, and the employers know this. Banri knows what they’re thinking – that he’s contemplating rejecting the job offer, now that he knows how dangerous it is.

“You’re not required to go under,” Hisoka finally speaks. “All you have to do is design the layout. You don’t have to come with us for the extraction.”

He looks almost apologetic about his subconscious trying to kill Banri. But now that the shock has finally worn off, Banri is filled with excitement at such a monumental challenge. Boundless creation, in exchange for a little bit of danger? All he needs to do is create a dream so stellar that the subconscious doesn’t notice it’s his creation, and he’s all set.

“Don’t worry,” he says, grinning. Hisoka and Tasuku look almost relieved. “I’ll design your dream, and I wanna go down there to watch the fruits of my labour. I’ve always been a sucker for a little bit of action, anyway.”

**

Preparation for the job is extremely enjoyable. Hisoka and Tasuku give him free reign to design and mess about with the physics – within certain limits – until he’s used to designing in dreams. Most of the time Banri spends time creating stuff from video games, movies, and even abstract buildings from his own imagination. It’s pretty exciting to see all his great ideas come to life, not bogged down by physics or lack of materials or lack of time.

Once he gets the hang of it, Hisoka provides him with a basic layout of what he wants the dream to be. The first layout is a beach house where the Mark stays when on holiday. The second layout is the top floor in a modern office building, where the Mark has a meeting with a potential investor, and that is where Hisoka will swoop in and extract the data. Banri makes sure every aspect of it is perfect – the colour of the walls, the type of wood, everything. It’s pretty boring work, but he’d rather not get mobbed by another subconscious anyway.

While Banri spends time designing the layout of the dream, Hisoka sorts out the plan for the extraction. From what he’s seen, Hisoka is a strange character – he falls asleep just about anytime and anywhere, and he can only be woken up with marshmallows. But when he’s acting for the job, he transforms into a charismatic businessman, expressing his interest in the Mark’s potential project for onshore oil production.

Hisoka also spends a lot of time helping Banri with the layout. He never gives unsolicited opinions, but he seems satisfied whenever looking over the blueprints, and when they’re under, he’s satisfied with the layout of the dream as well. The two of them spend a lot of time together while Tasuku gathers information about the Mark, walking through dreams and looking over the structures Banri has made.

Despite what Hisoka had said to Banri about being bad at dream architecture, he definitely does have plenty of experience. Banri wonders whether Hisoka used to work as an Architect before.

He also wonders why Hisoka isn’t doing the architecture for this job.

**

“On the first layer, we’ll be new neighbours living in the house next door to him,” Tasuku explains. “We talk about his work, which will lead him to talk about his projects, so on, so forth. Then after he gets too drunk over wine, he passes out, which allows us to go under again – a dream within a dream. That’s where the second layout comes in.”

“Why can’t you be the businessman, Tasuku?” Hisoka grumbles thorugh a mouthful of marshmallows. “Tsumugi told me that whenever you play the business client, you act all prince-ly and charming. You’re much better at it than me.”

Banri stares at Tasuku, who in return gives Hisoka a glare. This man of few words, who’s probably pretty bad at communicating, can act like a prince?

“Tsumugi needs to stop giving away unnecessary information,” Tasuku mutters. “Anyway, Mikage, you’re the Extractor. You’re the one that’s supposed to receive the documents. Obviously you have to play the part.”

“Troublesome,” Hisoka mutters under his breath. “I’d rather be a Pointman. All you do is shoot projections.”

“Well, someone needs to watch your back,” Tasuku says. “And anyway, at least you’re not doing the extraction on the Zahra Corp job.”

Banri’s heard about that a few times. The team that Hisoka and Tasuku usually work with have been hired by the young heir of a huge tech company for an extremely high stakes extraction job.

“Tsumugi says that Utsuki has his hands full with the client. You’re lucky he hired him and Guy-san instead of the both of us.”

“Azuma told me that the client has some sort of vested interest in Chikage,” Hisoka yawns. “Plus he’s got some history with Guy-san. He sounds like a strange person.”

He finishes his bag of marshmallows, and turns to Banri.

“I’m glad we’re on this job,” he says. “Banri’s a pretty good Architect.”

“Of course I am,” Banri says smugly, trying to hide his slight embarrassment. He wasn’t expecting to be praised.

“Well, he pays much more attention to detail than you,” Tasuku says with a shrug. Hisoka simply falls fast asleep in response.

**

As the days draw closer to the day of the extraction, Banri’s layout becomes more concrete – an exact replica of the buildings that exist in reality. They get the timing down perfectly – Banri staying in the first layer, while Tasuku and Hisoka go down in the second layer to extract the information.

Another thing Banri’s managed to do – carve a totem for himself, as requested by Tasuku. A small item which allows him to tell whether he’s a dream or reality, just like the spinning top Hisoka owned. Apparently if they were in a dream, it would continue spinning and never fall off. Banri had carved a miniature rubik’s cube out of wood for himself.

But while he becomes more confident with dreaming, he becomes concerned about Hisoka. August pops up frequently while they practice the extraction sequence, and even though the Shade never interferes, Banri wonders whether it will effect Hisoka during the job. When he asks Tasuku about it, the other man doesn’t seem too worried.

“I understand your concern,” he says. “But August isn’t dangerous. I’ve worked with people who were compromised by their Shades, but Mikage isn’t one of them. He’ll get the job done.”

Perhaps he’s been working with Hisoka for long enough for him to trust him. But despite all that time they’ve spent preparing for the job, Banri knows nothing about Hisoka, other than the fact that he’s a marshmallow monster who sleeps most of the time, and knows a lot about dream architecture.

Something about Hisoka is fascinating to him – the stark difference between him in a dream, and him in reality. Whenever they’re in a dream, Hisoka moves stealthily, like a cat moving through the night, even without any threat or danger. The way he changes whenever he puts on his disguise – whether it’s a friendly neighbour or interested businessman – it’s as if he’s become a completely different person. He’s mysterious, intriguing, and Banri is determined to find out more.

**

A week before the job, Banri finds Hisoka fast asleep, connected to a PASIV – the briefcase shaped equipment that they use to conduct Dreamshare. Impulsively, Banri moves to connect himself to the equipment as well.

He wants to learn more about Hisoka. And if Hisoka and Tasuku won’t tell him, he’ll have to find out, all by himself.

When he enters the dream, he’s standing upon the roof of a tall building. Someone is sitting on a signboard connected to the roof. Banri thinks it’s Hisoka at first, but when he approaches the signboard, it turns out to be someone else – but with a face that’s equally as familiar.

It’s August.

“Hello,” he says. He doesn’t seem surprised at Banri’s presence.

“Hi,” Banri replies. They stare at each other for a few awkward moments, before August speaks again.

“Let me guess,” he says. “You’re here to find out about the person who’s created this dream?”

Banri shugs. August pats the space next to him.

“I guess I caused December – Hisoka – a lot of trouble. Both April and I.”

Banri walks over, careful not to fall, and takes a seat. Looking down from where they are, everyone else – Hisoka’s projections – seem so small, insignificant, far away.

As he watches the city move below their feet, August starts to speak.

“December and I used to work in the same organisation. December was the Architect, I was a Chemist, and another one of us – April – he was the Extractor.”

August. April. The name that August calls Hisoka – December. They were all named after the months of the year. Perhaps they were codenames given by their old employers. Whatever it was, Hisoka suddenly appeared more dangerous than Banri ever realised.

“We were tight-knit – we were each other’s family.” August laughs wistfully. “But one day, when April was on a separate job than us, we were ambushed the moment we completed ours. December and I were chased to the edge of a cliff, and I was severely injured. But I was a Chemist, and my job went way beyond just narcotics. So I gave Hisoka a drug that would temporarily give him memory loss, and sacrificed myself so that he could escape.”

With an unpleasant jolt, Banri remembers – the word that Tasuku used to described August. A _ghost_.

“Why did you do that?” he asks.

“I wanted him to be free,” August says, gazing at the moon. In Hisoka’s dream, it’s a full moon; beautiful, and somehow painful. “I hoped that he could leave this profession, even after he regained his memories. But I guess, someone like him who sleeps all the time, it’s inevitable that he’d continue to be involved with the business of dreams.”

The projection speaking to him no longer exists in real life. But he continues to exist in Hisoka’s subconscious; an amalgamation of memories with a mind of its own, moving at his own will, talking to an intruder instead of attacking him. Once again, Banri is fascinated at how incredible a human mind can be.

“He got rescued by another team involved in Dreamshare – they call themselves Winter. They’re not like the Organisation. They move at their own pace, and they’re more focused on designing and creating in dreams as opposed to extracting information. I’m glad that Hisoka ended up there. But then – they got into all sorts of trouble, with April showing up.”

August smiles to himself, at the mention of the name. Banri wonders whether he exists in April’s subconscious as well. He wonders whether in April’s mind, August is more like the hostile shades Tasuku mentioned before. The ones who try to kill people.

“April thought that December had killed me, and he wanted to take revenge. He approached Winter pretending to be a client, and he had asked for the layout to be the exact blueprint of the dream that December built for my last job. He even entered the dream as a Tourist and tried to kill him. Of course – it made December regain some of his memories – more specifically, the memories of my death – back.”

The Shade stands up, walks off the signboard and onto the roof of the adjacent building. Banri follows him, and they enter a parking lot, half destroyed. The ceilings and the walls are littered with gunshots. The place of the ambush, he supposes.

 “Did you show yourself to him?” he asks. “That April fellow, I mean.”

“I did. That’s how he realised that my death was of my own will, and not by December’s hands.”

“What about his own projection? I’m sure you’re his Shade, too.”

“April is much better at keeping his thoughts hidden,” August says, with a wry smile.

They keep walking, until they exit the building, onto what looks like the edge of a cliff. Hisoka is there, at the edge. He doesn’t seem surprised at August, but he raises his eyebrows at Banri’s presence.

“Did he talk to you?” he asks. August turns back, and vanishes back into the building where they just exited from.

“Yeah,” Banri says. “He told me everything.”

“August trusts pretty easily,” Hisoka mutters. He shoves a marshmallow into his mouth. Banri doesn’t know what to say.

“Don’t worry,” Hisoka goes on. “I took this job to prove to myself – to August – that I won’t be tied down by the past. Then I can finally say goodbye.”

The cliff crumbles beneath their feet, and they both awaken.

**

“What happened to the April guy?” Banri asks, as Hisoka keeps away the PASIV. “The one who tried to kill you?”

“He stil has some ties to the Organisation,” Hisoka replies. “But now we’re protected by him. He’s on the Zahra Corp job now. With Tsumugi and the others.”

What a surprising turn of events. The person who tried to kill Hisoka’s team is now doing a job with them. Banri remembers the name of the extractor that Tasuku and Hisoka mentioned – Utsuki Chikage. Perhaps that’s who April is now.

“Banri, you’re a kind person,” Hisoka says, suddenly. Banri stiffens.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re looking out for me, even though I didn’t ask for it.” Hisoka goes over to Banri, and ruffles his hair. “You’re a good boy.”

Always sleeping. Always eating marshmallows. And yet, incredibly mysterious. Incredibly tragic. And incredibly kind.

Banri is caught by a desperation to help him.

“Hey,” he murmurs. Hisoka lifts his hand in surprise. “Are you gonna meet with that August projection, once this job is over?”

Hisoka nods.

“You’re gonna shoot him, right?” Banri asks, looking straight into Hisoka’s eyes. He nods once more.

“August wanted me to forget about him, and live freely,” he says. “But I didn’t want to let him go, even when I couldn’t remember him. That’s why I didn’t want to build for this job. This job is my first after what happened with Chikage, and I wanted to be the Extractor so that August could see I’m capable of doing something different. I’m capable to be more than just the Architect that December used to be. Once that’s done, and he sees my achievements, I can finally let go of him, and get rid of his projection. He’s not even real, anyway.”

Despite his cold words, Hisoka sounds reluctant. Banri doesn’t know when he started to notice changes in that ever-tired voice, but he can tell. Hisoka is saying this to himself, but he doesn’t want to.

“Let me shoot him,” Banri says firmly. Hisoka stares at him in surprise.

“Hisoka-san, you want the projection to disappear, right? But you can’t bring yourself to do it. Because you’re a sentimental guy. So let me do it. Let me kill the projection for you.”

A long silence passes, before Hisoka finally shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “I’ll get rid of him myself.” He takes a deep breath, and smiles. “But I want you there. I want you to make me pull the trigger.”

**

The day of the job arrives with no problems. Preparations are all perfect, even though they had made a last minute change – Banri would go down to the second layer, and Tasuku would stay on the top layer.

“Why do you want to go down there?” Tasuku had asked him, when Banri made the request.

“I wanna be next to Hisoka-san,” Banri had replied. “I wanna be there when he gets the job done.”

Tasuku had smiled at that.

“Take care of Mikage,” he had said. “Not just for me, but for all of us in Winter. They’re all worried about him.”

Even with the change, there are no problems. Tasuku turns out to have dabbled in architecture before, and it’s a pretty simple layout anyway, so it’s easy to let him handle the first layer. They encounter the Mark by sharing a train carriage with him. Once he’s seated, Hisoka hands the Mark a glass of spiked water, which he drinks. Once he falls asleep, they set up the equipment, and the dream begins.

It starts with the Mark sitting on his porch outside his holiday home. The three of them show up in holiday wear, waving casually and telling them they’re new neighbours, bringing along a bottle of wine to say hello. The Mark invites them in, and they sit and chat, making light talk about the Mark’s business. They spike the third glass of wine, and the Mark passes out. Everything goes according to plan.

On the second layer, Hisoka becomes the star of the show, talking enthusiastically to the Mark, asking him about his business project. Banri, pretending to be his P.A, watches him like a hawk. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices August, watching from the roof of a nearby building.

The Mark eventually agrees to Hisoka, signing documents and telling him that the project will be a definite success. Once all the formalities are completed, the two of them exit the meeting room and make a dash for it, Banri’s heart pumping with adrenaline and Hisoka allowing himself a smile.

Banri’s first job. Hisoka’s first extraction. It was a huge success.

When the dreams crumble and the drugs wear off, the three of them quickly exit the carriage before their Mark wakes up. Tasuku has to carry Hisoka since he refuses to wake up, much to Banri’s amusement. They hand over the information to their client, and with that, it’s over.

All those weeks of preparation, completed in a flash.

Tasuku heads off first, saying that he needs to provide the details to Tsumugi and promising that they’ll have a proper celebration later at night. Once he’s gone, Banri and Hisoka, now awake, share a look.

It’s time for Hisoka to say goodbye.

**

When they enter the dream, it’s the same cliff as before. But the Shade is gone.

“August,” Hisoka calls out.

No one appears.

Hisoka calls his name again. He turns around, looking for the Shade.

Still, he doesn’t show up. It’s just the two of them, on a deserted cliff.

“Maybe he’s finally disappeared,” Banri suggests.

“It can’t be,” Hisoka murmurs. He’s breathing heavily. “I had to come and- I had to come and say goodbye. I couldn’t do it in real life, that’s why-”

“I think he was satisfied,” Banri interjects. Hisoka turns to look at him, and his eyes shine with unshed tears.

“I saw August,” Banri goes on. “He was watching you while you carried out the extraction. Once you signed the documents, he left. I think he was satisfied with your performance, so he doesn’t feel the need to watch out for you anymore.”

“You’re right,” Hisoka says finally. He shakes his head, scrubs a hand across his eyes. “I think it’s because I’m satisfied, that my projection of August is satisfied too. I guess my Shade is finally gone.”

“Maybe he’ll show up again,” Banri suggests. “I know you said you wanted to let him go, but you actually don’t want to, right?”

Hisoka stiffens at the question.

“I know you don’t want to let him go. I mean, he’s your family. Maybe that’s why August didn’t want to say goodbye either. Maybe it’s because he’ll show up again, when you want to see him.”

“Maybe,” Hisoka agrees. He pats Banri’s head. “Thanks for coming with me. You’re a good boy, Banri.”

**

When they wake up, there’s a message on Hisoka’s phone.

_The rest of Winter are taking a break from job preparations to celebrate our win. Come over to the usual place. Azuma-san’s bought you those fancy marshmallows that you like._

“Let’s go celebrate,” Hisoka says, smiling at Banri. Part of him looks incredibly lonely. But overall, he looks much happier than before. As if he’s been lifted from a heavy burden. Banri smiles back, and they make their way out of the warehouse together.

“By the way, Hisoka-san,” Banri says casually, as they walk side by side. “If there’s any opportunity for me to work with you guys again, let me know. I wanna build more complicated stuff.”

“Don’t worry,” Hisoka replies. He lifts up a hand and places something into Banri’s palm. “I like spending time with you. I’ll invite you over, even if there’s no job opening.”

Banri opens his palm, and laughs.

Of course, it’s a marshmallow.

**Author's Note:**

> kai is a wonderful person with an incredibly creative mind and i'm glad i was able to write their gift. i hope i've managed to do banhiso justice!  
> **  
> more explanation about this au is as follows:
> 
> tsumugi, tasuku, hisoka, homare and azuma work as an extraction team known as Winter. everyone in Winter is skilled enough to perform extraction, however on most jobs they operate as follows:  
> tsumugi - extractor  
> tasuku - pointman  
> hisoka - architect  
> homare - chemist  
> azuma - forger
> 
> the organisation operates in a similar manner to how it operates in canon (in which we know extremely little about). they use dreamshare to execute some of their jobs. april, august and december belonged to the dreamshare division. since all of them are trained in combat, they would act as each other's pointman.
> 
> chikage no longer works in the organisation, but he still has links to some of its members to protect himself and Winter. he currently works on extraction jobs alongside guy who acts as his pointman (similar to arthur and cobb in the movie) 
> 
> zahra corp is a huge tech company which has dabbled multiple times in dreamshare. citron is the heir to the company. the zahra corp job is as follows:  
> chikage - extractor  
> guy - pointman  
> tsumugi - architect  
> citron - tourist  
> azuma - forger  
> homare - chemist  
> **  
> initially this fic was supposed to be divided into two parts: the banhiso job and the zahra corp job involving chikacitoguy. unfortunately this au spanned much further than i anticipated, and i could only complete the banhiso side of this au. maybe one day i'll attempt to write something about the zahra corp job and chikacitoguy!


End file.
